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  • Case ID: 326773
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BLE Mesh up to 3500 devices

gcb

Hi

I'm wondering if I can build a Bluetooth Mesh network for up to 3500 devices. I researched the BLE Mesh standard and theoretically the protocol can create a mesh with up to 32,767 devices on a network, with a maximum network diameter of 126 hops. So far I've only seen use cases with up to 30 devices using nRF52x SoC, so from what I noticed the biggest limitation is the flash memory on the SoC to store the LUT with the routing keys, am I right?

If the limitation on the number of devices is the amount of flash memory available to store the LUT with the routing keys, can I solve this problem by adding a large external QSPI flash memory to my nRF52x SoC?

At Nordic, has anyone ever done a test case with a huge number of devices on the same BLE mesh network? If so, how many devices could you reach?

Best regards

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    Hi,

    with up to 32,767 devices on a network

    Up to 32767 (int 16) number of unicast addresses, yes.

    So far I've only seen use cases with up to 30 devices using nRF52x SoC, so from what I noticed the biggest limitation is the flash memory on the SoC to store the LUT with the routing keys, am I right?

    Yes, this is the biggest limitation. You will have to make sure that your RPL (Replay protection list) is large enough to be able to store all the sender addresses you can receive messages from (sender addresses + sequence number + more). I'm not 100% sure how large this is, as it will vary depending on the features you intend to add, so some computations will have to be done from your end based on experimentation for such a large number.

    Regarding the keys, this will only be an issue for the provisioner, as the provisioner will also have an overview over all of the nodes. If you're aiming to use an nRF for the Provisioner role, it could be wise to use an external flash to store the configuration database

    At Nordic, has anyone ever done a test case with a huge number of devices on the same BLE mesh network? If so, how many devices could you reach?

    Unfortunately we've not done any tests with such a large number of devices. 

    Kind regards,
    Andreas

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  • 0

    Hi,

    with up to 32,767 devices on a network

    Up to 32767 (int 16) number of unicast addresses, yes.

    So far I've only seen use cases with up to 30 devices using nRF52x SoC, so from what I noticed the biggest limitation is the flash memory on the SoC to store the LUT with the routing keys, am I right?

    Yes, this is the biggest limitation. You will have to make sure that your RPL (Replay protection list) is large enough to be able to store all the sender addresses you can receive messages from (sender addresses + sequence number + more). I'm not 100% sure how large this is, as it will vary depending on the features you intend to add, so some computations will have to be done from your end based on experimentation for such a large number.

    Regarding the keys, this will only be an issue for the provisioner, as the provisioner will also have an overview over all of the nodes. If you're aiming to use an nRF for the Provisioner role, it could be wise to use an external flash to store the configuration database

    At Nordic, has anyone ever done a test case with a huge number of devices on the same BLE mesh network? If so, how many devices could you reach?

    Unfortunately we've not done any tests with such a large number of devices. 

    Kind regards,
    Andreas

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